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The Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (SCSO) is the largest instrumental ensemble at Shenandoah Conservatory dedicated to the performance of both standard and contemporary repertoire. The ensemble typically presents six different programs each season, including a full opera production and a program featuring winners of the annual Student Soloists Competition. There are currently between 75 and 80 regular members in the SCSO.

The SCSO has featured many of Shenandoah Conservatory’s own performing faculty as soloists in many of their programs such as pianist John O’Conor, Garrick Zoeter, Ryan Romine, Earl Yowell and Akemi Takayama as well as many prominent guest artists including cellist Andres Diaz, pianist Vanessa Perez, trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann and violinist Anne Akiko Meyers.

Working with living composers has also been an integral part of the SCSO’s activities including recent collaborations with William Bolcom, Kevin Puts and Jennifer Higdon. In February 2015 the SCSO performed the world premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ complete Blues Symphony in a performance at the Strathmore Music Center following a short residency by Wynton Marsalis at Shenandoah Conservatory.

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Meet the Director

Jan Wagner, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, launched his professional conducting career after winning First Prize at the 1995 Nicolai Malko International Conductors Competition in Denmark. In 2002, he completed a five-year tenure as Principal Conductor of the Odense Symphony Orchestra in Denmark, which he led in more than 200 performances, conducting more than 200 different works both on subscription concerts and on two separate tours to the United States and Spain.

Simultaneous with his appointment in Denmark, Jan Wagner regularly conducted the Danish National Radio Symphony, the Danish Radio Sinfonietta (including two tours to Paris and Sweden), the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the Danish Royal Theater, as well as most of the principal Danish and Scandinavian orchestras. Other notable orchestras he has worked with include the Royal Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony, the Hannover Radio Symphony, the Halle Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Symphony, the West Australian Symphony (Perth), and the Melbourne Symphony.

In North and South America, Wagner has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Aspen Chamber Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera on a United States tour of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the Philharmonic Orchestra of the U.N.A.M in Mexico City, and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. He has also been a regular guest conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, the country's national symphony orchestra, since 1998. Throughout the current 2016/17 season, Wagner will continue to serve as one of a few resident assistant/cover conductors for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, an association that began in March 2016.

Contemporary composers with whom Jan Wagner has collaborated include Danish composers Poul Ruders (world premiere performance and recording of his Guitar Concerto), Per Nørgård, Anders Nordentoft, American composers William Bolcom, Kevin Puts, and Richard Wilson. The 2014/15 season brought collaborations with Jennifer Higdon and Wynton Marsalis as part of the world premiere performance of the complete Blues Symphony at the Strathmore Music Center with the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. The current 2016/17 season will bring a collaboration with iconic American composer John Corigliano.

Jan Wagner has also been very active recording for labels such as Denon(Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Debussy's L'apres-midi d'un faune-DVD audio), DaCapo (works by Paul von Klenau which received a Danish Grammy nomination), Classico (world premiere of Poulenc’s Les animaux modele), Bridge Records (world premiere of Poul Ruders’ Guitar Concerto, works by Ginastera, Villa-Lobos, including the world premiere of Villa-Lobos’ ballet Emperor Jones, and Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto), Silverline(Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben and Vier letzte Lieder-DVD audio) and Danacord(Mussorgsky-Ravel’s Pictures at an Exhibition). In 2010, Wagner initiated a long-term project with the Naxoslabel and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela to launch a new series called “Latin-American Classics” which will feature symphonic works by leading Venezuelan composers from the twentieth century. The first CD featuring works by Evencio Castellanos was released in January 2012.

Jan Wagner currently holds the position of Professor of Music at Shenandoah University where he serves as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and Kammermusik Players. He also serves as the music director of the school's fully staged opera productions. He has also served as the artistic director and conductor of the Shenandoah Conservatory Performing Arts Festival, Shenandoah Performs, between 2004 and 2008.

He is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria, where he completed his studies with Karl Österreicher and Günther Theuring. He has furthered his studies with Murry Sidlin and Lawrence Foster as a Fellow Conductor at the Aspen Music Festival and has participated in master classes with John Nelson, Leonard Slatkin, and James Conlon.

Following his studies, he was the Top Prize Winner at the 1994 Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York and was the recipient of the 1994 Conducting Prize at the Aspen Music Festival. He has also served as assistant conductor to Lawrence Foster at the Aspen Music Festival, assistant/apprentice conductor under Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra, and as assistant/cover conductor to Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic.

International Tours

The Symphony Orchestra is currently preparing for its upcoming tour of Argentina in March 2017.

Tour Video

The Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra undertook its first major international tour to Spain in March 2014 with four successful performances at major venues in the cities of Zaragoza, Castellon, Murcia and Granada.

Audition Information

Membership to the Symphony Orchestra is open to both undergraduates and graduate students (both music and non-music majors). Auditions for placement consideration into the ensemble take place the week before classes start in late August. Ensemble placement materials are generally posted during the summer months.

Experience Shenandoah Conservatory

SHENANDOAH CONSERVATORY INVITES provides instrumental high school students multiple opportunities each year to make music with Shenandoah faculty, students and ensembles. Musicians playing string, brass, woodwind and percussion instruments will find events enabling intensive study with Shenandoah’s world-class faculty and the opportunity to make music alongside current conservatory students. Each of these events take place on Shenandoah’s beautiful Winchester campus.